Beacon-based (bbFISH(®)) technology for rapid pathogens identification in blood cultures

BACKGROUND: Diagnosis and treatment of bloodstream infections (BSI) are often hampered by the delay in obtaining the final results of blood cultures. Rapid identification of pathogens involved in BSI is of great importance in order to improve survival of septic patients. Beacon-based fluorescent in situ hybridization (hemoFISH(®) Gram positive and hemoFISH(®) Gram negative test kits, miacom diagnostics GmbH Düsseldorf, Germany) accelerates the identification of most frequent bacterial pathogens of sepsis. RESULTS: In this study a total of 558 blood culture (377 blood culture positive and 181 negative) were tested with the hemoFISH(®) method and the results were evaluated in comparison with the traditional culture based methods. The overall sensitivity and specificity of the hemoFISH(®) tests were 94.16% and 100%, while, the PPV and NPV were 100 and 89.16%, respectively. As the hemoFISH(®) results were obtained within 45 mins, the time difference between the final results of the traditional culture method and the hemoFISH(®) assay was about two days. CONCLUSIONS: Considering the good sensitivity and specificity of the hemoFISH(®) assays as well as the significant time saving in obtaining the final results (p-value 0.0001), the introduction of the system could be rialable in the microbiology laboratories, even alongside the traditional systems.